Business writing training course - writing plain English business letters, e-mails and reports
 

Atherton Training Consultants Ltd

A general Business Writing Course - Letters, emails, reports, plain English, etc.

BUSINESS WRITING TRAINING

Courses for up to 12 people at your premises. Companies and organisations only. No public courses.

Email direct to Tony Atherton or phone 07976-390960

 
Business writing courses - there are many of them, but not many are presented by an experienced trainer who is also a published writer. This one is!

COURSE AIM - Business Writing Training Course

One estimate claims that British businesses waste about £6 billion a year through poor business writing. This one-day course aims to help groups of delegates, from within the same organisation, to produce business writing that is clear, concise and easy for readers to understand - and to do it more quickly and easily than they have been used to. It should help to save both time and money.

It covers the principles and practice of preparing, writing and editing. It is applicable to any type of business writing, including letters and emails, and can be modified to meet specific needs, such as concise writing.

Training is for groups of up to about 12 delegates from the same company or organisation and is presented at your premises


IS THERE A TRACK RECORD?

There is. Tony presented his first course in Business Writing to a group of ten delegates at a company in Kent on 16 March 1999. That was specifically about writing business letters. Since then, in various forms, the course has been presented about 75 times helping some 700 delegates. In total, Tony has presented about 350 business writing courses if courses in Minute Taking and Report Writing are included. Most were one-day courses but some were for two or three days.

Although he now only presents this course on his own behalf, he has presented it in the past on behalf of Reed Training and Fielden-Cegos.

The course has often been adapted to meet the specific needs of various clients. For example, a version of the course was designed for Ofsted and presented to nearly 350 delegates.

Our business-writing clients include: Ofsted; NCAS, Wandsworth Housing; Imerys; GKN, Stonebridge Insurance; Your Communications; Touchstone; FSC Gibraltar; Actavis/Alpharma; Pfizer; Ineos Silicas, Eclipse Petroleum, Vectura, Quest International, Wallgate; BBC; Synthomer; C-Far; Whitbybird and many others.


COURSE CONTENT - Business Writing Training Course

  • Writing better business letters, e-mails and other business documents.
  • A process for better business writing.
  • The need for effective preparation for better and faster business writing.
  • Planning, structuring and writing business letters and e-mails.
  • Writing one draft.
  • Keeping business documents short and simple.
  • Editing for accuracy, brevity and clarity.
  • Increase your confidence in the use of business grammar and punctuation.

COURSE DESCRIPTION - Business Writing Training Course

INTRODUCTION

  • What makes business writing effective?
  • Samples of some business writing.
  • A process for business writing including writing business letters.

PREPARATION

  • Your purpose - what are you trying to achieve?
  • Your readers - who are they and what do they need?
  • Planning your document - from purpose to paragraphs

WRITING BUSINESS LETTERS

  • Conventions for layout; greetings and signatures in business letters
  • Avoiding cliché openings and closings.
  • Structuring and sequencing your content; making it flow.

WRITING BUSINESS E-MAILS

  • Problems with business e-mails.
  • What people hate about business e-mails.
  • Keeping them short but pleasant.
  • E-mail etiquette and rules for good writing.

WRITING OTHER BUSINESS DOCUMENTS

  • Structuring reports - report sections.
  • Structuring minutes.

EDITING YOUR BUSINESS WRITING

  • The meaning of plain English and why it is important.
  • Short paragraphs, short sentences and short words.
  • Choosing your words, using jargon and avoiding pomposity.
  • Active and passive verbs
  • Nominalisation - preferring verbs to nouns.
  • Some common problems with grammar and punctuation.
  • Using the MS Word readability statistics.

TRAINING STYLE

The training style uses a mixture of talks, discussions, group work and individual work in a mix that is as appropriate as possible to the delegates. The actual course may differ slightly from the fine details above as the training is adjusted to match as accurately as possible the needs of the delegates. Delegates are asked to help one another to achieve their action plans. Full course notes are provided which also serve as reference books for later. The normal maximum number of delegates is 12.

THE TRAINER

Tony Atherton ran his first Business Writing course in 1999. Since then he has presented about 75 such courses, some with various modifications, for delegates from a variety of industries. If all types of business writing course are included then Tony has presented about 350 courses.

As a training consultant and published writer, Tony draws on a career in both the public and private sectors including employment in the Royal Navy, GEC-Marconi, the Independent Broadcasting Authority and the University of Hong Kong. For five years he was the Training Manager at NTL and since 1997 he has been an independent trainer and writer. As a published writer he has four books and around 90 articles to his name.

He has trained thousands of delegates from blue-chip organisations - both independently and on behalf of large training companies including Reed Training, Fielden-Cegos, the Institute of Management and Right-Coutts.

He has also inspected government-funded training on behalf of the Training Standards Council and the Adult Learning Inspectorate.

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CONTACT US:

E-mail direct to Tony Atherton

Phone 07976-390960

Covers: United Kingdom
Call 07976-390960
E-mail Tony Atherton Trainer and writer

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'One of the most valuable courses we've had.'

Clients

Client organisations for all subjects over the years include:

Clients on behalf of the Institute of Management, Reed Training, Right-Coutts and Fielden-Cegos include:

CONTACT US:

E-mail direct to Tony Atherton

Phone 07976-390960

Covers: United Kingdom
 

Business Writing course details: Last updated 23 August 2008